


Cleopatra

by UniqueDaisy



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Break Up, F/M, Failed Relationship, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, One Shot, Past Relationship(s), Relationship Problems, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28644069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniqueDaisy/pseuds/UniqueDaisy
Summary: Inspired by the Lumineer's song, CleopatraAn elderly y/n meets a man who she opens up to about her past regrets and what-ifs of her life. She talks about losing the lover and trying to overcome her past to accept love again.Character death at the end.*Story switches back and forth between past and present*
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Reader, Iwaizumi Hajime/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Cleopatra

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by the Lumineer's song, Cleopatra. 
> 
> Sad Songs to Listen to:  
> Cleopatra- Lumineers  
> Apocalypse- Cigarettes After Sex  
> Champagne Problems-Taylor Swift  
> Happiness- Taylor Swift  
> Love- Lana Del Rey  
> Last Kiss- Taylor Swift  
> My Eyes- Lumineers  
> Evermore- Taylor Swift  
> Salt & the Sea- Lumineers  
> K- Cigarettes After Sex  
> Cherry Wine- Hozier
> 
> None of these songs are actually important to the plot besides Cleopatra. I just think slow sad romance songs will best set the mood of the story. So, please just read however you'd like and feel free to leave songs/story feedback. Enjoy lovelies :)

The day was also gloomy and rainy, but it was the day I met you. The woman who despite being past her prime was beautiful. Although you were hardened by a tough life as shown by the stressed lined across your forehead and between the furrows of your brow. Your eyes were kind and wise. A woman who held herself high with grace despite the shriveling body. The smile lines and crow’s feet were blinded by your whole hearted smile as I stepped into that taxi’s backseat.

“Where to sir?” I recall you saying with a smile on your face. Looking back on the memory, I can see you were thinking about him. The love of your life who slipped through your fingers. You’d often tell me later the similarities we’d have in character.

“The airport, ma’am,” I said bluntly. You started chuckling and left me stunned. ‘What was so funny about the airport’ I thought. But I didn’t want to question it since your smiling face eliminated 20 years off your true age. That time-less and enchanting smile could over shine any art in a museum.

“Why are you going to the airport, dear?” You asked with the look of curiosity of a child whom just asked their parents where babies came from, such an innocent expression. _Click_! You started the red-lite meteor with the money rising every couple seconds.

I went into a deep explanation of why I was leaving this city and never coming back. How my family was riddled with issues that I’d had enough of. Even though you asked about it you never gave an opinion on my situation. You nodded, probably knowing I needed to vent about my life. Or maybe you just didn’t want to sit another drive surrounded in silence. Regardless I’ll always appreciate that long taxi ride during rush hour to the airport.

Once I finished blowing off steam, we got stuck on a road behind a large car wreck. You continued to frequently glace back in the rear-view mirror at me, sorrow in those wise eyes. The silence was suffocating until I asked, “Why do you look so sad when seeing me ma’am?”

“Well, it’s a long story, but I believe we have some extra time,” you scoffed sarcastically with a grin tugging on your lips. A smile crept onto my face as well. “But first I’d like to know your name first. Wouldn’t want to know someone’s story without knowing their name. I am y/n l/n.”

“Wesley Schultz.”

“Well nice to meet you Wesley,” that intoxicating smile returned. “Well, it all started on March 15 around, I believe, 41ish years-ago. I was turning… 23,” you hesitated as to do remember the age that passed you by long ago.

_____________________________

**_41 years ago_ **

Young, beautiful, and full of hopeless bliss that you were meant for something much bigger than a simple life. Everything was going your way. You graduated from your first choice University with a degree in preforming arts. You were starting your new job at the local theatre to help build your resume before leaving to pursue your dream. Being on the stage of a Broadway show and with him cheering on in the audience. The man who’s been through the highs and lows with you, Keiji Akaashi. Although being together since high school you both grew more infatuated with one another each passing day. You two met when you were the manager for the boy’s high school volleyball team. Akaashi encouraged you to follow your dreams and even accommodated his so you could still be together for the future, for forever you thought.

Everything came crashing down. You fell from the cloud nine that you’d been on for far too long. No one ever tells you how important one decision can be. Your father who’s been your rock through childhood, especially after your mother walked out on you both, had died unexpectedly in a car crash. No one could have predicted it. At the funeral you didn’t even have the choice to see him rest in a casket. Your father’s injuries had been so severe that he had to be cremated, no other options.

The day of the funeral was the most antagonizing day in your life. It was long and brutal. Having to hear the half-hearted sympathizes from people you knew gave no shit about you or your father. But Keiji was there for you. As he always was. Taking you home on that day. It was gloomy and rainy. Almost as though nature could feel your sorrows. The ride home with Keiji driving would’ve been silent had not been for your muttered weeping.

Once stepping inside the doorway, the breeze from the heater rushes toward your frozen body. You kicked off your shoes and before you can grab them Keiji took them from you and neatly set them into the cubby. Walking in a stupor you went directly into the bedroom. Laying on the bed you shrunk yourself into a ball covered by a blanket and wept. Never did you bother to change out of the black dress you were wearing. Faintly hearing the soft pitter-patter of Keiji’s feet as he crept behind you. He tapped your shoulder making you turn yourself around. His face looked at you with such sympathy and pity, it made your stomach turn. He hadn’t changed out of his black suit either. His black hair which usually rested across his forehead had been slickened back for the dreadful occasion. His gunmetal blue eyes with soften pupils gazed into your swollen red ones. The way he looked at you was with a softness that he held only for you. It was yours and no one else.

“Y/n,” he said. The way his voice said your name was how he talked about the stars you would often drive to at night to see. The softness and admiration in his voice was so sincere it gave you butterflies in contrast the ache you’d been feeling since the dreadful phone call. “I know this may be soon, but I know it is you I want to wake up next to everyday. It’s you I want to have my children. I want to go to New York with you. I want to watch you as you perform in front of thousands of people but when you look into the crowd you only lock eyes with me. I know I may be selfish but for this one time will you please leave this place with me. Never turning back because if we don’t go now, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to leave.

Keiji Akaashi dropped down on one knee and held out his hands. “Y/n will you make me the happiest man in the world and I plead with you to marry me. I know I don’t have enough money to get you the brightest and most beautiful ring you deserve. But I have my love. It burns for you and only you because you are light that burns my soul. That little flame you set there has completely devoured me. You keep me alive. Please, y/n come with me and make a fresh start away from here.” He pleaded with you. But you couldn’t leave you hadn’t buried your father yet. You hadn’t done so much yet and you couldn’t leave. At least not yet. You looked into Keiji’s eyes as he begs you to come along with him.

You turn your back to him and continued mourning your father. Neither accepting nor rejecting him. But Keiji didn’t take it that way. The love of his life had rejected him. His world had been crumbled. He walked into the kitchen and made you dinner and packed up his suitcase. When tying his shoes, he had the urge to go and ask you to change your mind but he didn’t. Instead, he just walked into the bedroom you both shared and with mud staining the carpet he bent down and kissed your forehead as you slept after passing out from crying. He boarded the plane without his most important luggage, y/n. Setting off for a new beginning that had just began with a freshly broken heart and an extinguished fire in his soul.

Once you’d finally awoke the next morning you felt lonely. Engulfed by a bed that was too big for only one person. But Keiji always insisted on working at the earliest time so he could always make it to your late performances so it wasn’t the first lonely morning you’ve ever had. Reaching over to his side of the bed you expected to feel his warmth that the bed sustained. Once it touched the cool sheets you realized, Keiji hadn’t slept there. You whipped your head up and ignored the pounding from the headache caused by dehydration. Looking over to the doorway you saw them. Mud footprints. That was it. All you had left of the man Keiji Akaashi, the love of your life.

_______________________

**_Taxi Ride_ **

“That’s it. You loved that man for all your life? Seriously? You never found happiness after that?” I swarmed you with questions after hearing how a once hopeful life turned melancholic with days.

“You haven’t let me finish! But even now I still find myself longing for him. The love we had was a once in a lifetime thing. We understood everything about each other. He’d always know which smile I was faking and I could tell how he was truly feeling through his mask he kept.” You didn’t try to cover up the sadness in your voice as you finished the last thought. I looked at you and how the once hardened beautiful women I saw when I entered the taxi looked broken by this.

"Will you continue the story Y/n?”

_______________________________

**_9 Years After Akaashi Left_ **

Now your youth was fleeting at the age of 32, friends were pushing you to find someone to settle down. They didn’t understand the whole in your heart that Akaashi had left. No man could or would ever be like him. But they didn’t care and had forced you to sign up for a mixer.

When getting ready you put on light make up to cover up the sunken semi-circles under your eyes caused by little sleep mixed with over working yourself. You got dressed up in your nicer casual clothes. What could you say you were a girl who found that dressing up was useless. The only person who you vowed to love left you so who were you trying to impress. That’s right no one. This isn’t the first time your friends have done this. You could handle them signing you up for a mixer but when they mention cleaning the mud-stained carpet… that’s where you drew the line. Once when they signed you up to go to a previous blind date they broke into your house and attempted to clean the stains, the last thing of Keiji. But luckily for you the date had bailed last minute and you make it in time to stop them. You gave a shallow sigh at recalling the memory.

The mixer was at the nicest restaurant in town called, Étoile Solitaire. It was in a run-down building in the middle of down-town. You were right on time as you walked up to the hostess and asked where the group was. She took you into the back room which was privately rented out.

Stepping into the room a breeze from the ac enwraps around your body and met the gaze of a man, with a tall muscular build. At first glance he reminded you of Keiji Akaashi. The faces of the two were similar but the man in front of you held a deeper skin tone, olive eyes, his hair is a spiked-up style.

The biggest difference was their aura; Keiji Akaashi was like spending the day at home on a snowy winter’s day. The comfort of being enwrap in his arms next to a fire with the heater humming as the electric bill rises. He was home. 

The man in front of you was like a vacation to the beach. Fun and intoxicating. The ac always running so when you’d come home from being beaten by the sun’s rays you would cool down.

After being stuck in the winter storm for the past 9 years you needed a vacation. Something to occupy your heart and head. You needed warmth the of a certain beach. You took the empty seat next to the man. His eyes watched you since you’ve walked into the room. “Hello. I am Y/N L/N,” giving him that blinding whole hearted smile and stuck out your right hand waiting for a shake.

“Iwaizumi Hajime,” he said with an addictive smirk as his thick hands enclosed around yours.

The two of you continued to converse the rest of the night. Laughing filled the room even after the rest of the group left, leaving the two of you alone. You both felt as though you were reconnected with an old friend. You talked about your life and he talked about his. He came from 3 cities over and played boys volleyball. He had moved to your city when he was 27 and worked at the local high school as an athletic trainer, he was currently 34 years old. At the end of the night, you exchanged numbers.

A half a year later, you and Iwaizumi officially got married in August. Instead of butterflies you felt guilt with shackles carrying you down. You felt as though you were betraying Akaashi but you couldn’t keep waiting. You felt you were betraying Iwa because deep down you knew you couldn’t whole heartedly love him. You didn’t love or appreciate his flaws, but you could love him past his flaws. In your mind you knew this love wouldn’t last but for the mean time you just didn’t want to be lonely. You couldn’t let go of the past. Even after getting married you kept the house and Akaashi once shared. It was the only thing left.

The first year of the marriage was fine. It wasn’t any different from when you two lived together in Iwa’s house. But once the second year started Iwa started to get more controlling, first it started with making you do all the chores instead of your two’s previous agreement to split it. Then by the end of the year he made you quit your job as an actress at the theater. He would say how theatrics were boring compared to sports and he’d never go watch them anyway. While you didn’t enjoy this new life Iwa wanted you two to have you accommodated because you wanted to make this work. You owed it to him for having to put up with your half-hearted love.

By the fourth year your once fruitful marriage was wilting and quickly at that. As did you and Iwa’s youth, wrinkles began to crack onto the surfaces of your skin as the stress of marriage quickly caught up to you. Iwa had kept bring up at how you two should have a kid before you get too old. You’d already become 36 and pregnancy was becoming more riskier the longer you waited. Iwa and you tried for half a year before finally getting a positive test result. That day the old Iwa finally came back. The fun intoxicating man who made you forget about your struggles. But it didn’t last. It got worse as he began to work more.

“Iwa, why are you always at work!” you said less of a question and more of a statement. “You’ve missed every single appointment and you haven’t been here for any of the major developments for our baby! Did you know they starting kicking 5 weeks ago? No! Want to know why, hmm, because you’re always working!” you had finally exploded. It was good to finally get off your chest.

“Shut your fucking mouth, Y/n. I’m doing this for us and for our baby! It’s not my fault you picked the dumbest job in the world. You think you could’ve helped support our baby on the salary of an actress at that shitty little theatre?” Iwa retorted screaming. You flinched at this Iwa. You knew he didn’t like your past job, but it hurt for him to say that. Silence filled the room.

“See I knew you’d understand. So, it’d be better just for you to stay home and actually do something useful. I’ll be the one to take care of us and our family,” Iwa calmly reassured you. You wanted to leave but you had nothing; no money, no car, no friends to stay at. The only thing you had was that little house you and Akaashi shared but that wouldn’t be far enough to escape Iwa’s wrath. The loneliness you felt in this world scared you so even though your husband scared you, you found yourself wrapped up in his embrace.

You had gone into labor on your exact due date, June 15. No complications, nothing. Although you had wanted an epidural Iwa talked you out of it, something along the lines of, “You may never experience this again.” You and Iwa had a healthy baby boy whom you named, Hiroyuki Hajime. Once again, that Iwa you met at the mixer came out. He stayed around a little longer this time. He was so caring for both you and Hiroyuki. Iwa never complained to get up and change his beloved son’s diaper. While Iwa came down from his high and treated you like normal, he didn’t for his son. Iwa was so happy to finally have a child of his own. As Hiroyuki grew older the fighting between you and Iwa got worse. He went back to being a workaholic. The spikey haired man only ever came home for his son. They’d play volleyball and do other ‘boy’ activities. Iwa never had time for you. It felt as though you were trapped behind a glass wall. Forever only watching without ever feeling. You with all this free time since Hiroyuki went to school and Iwa worked overtime every day, you started to think about Akaashi. Every time you thought of him a flutter was in your heart. You knew you still loved him. You couldn’t keep lying. You knew a lot of things that you chose to ignore. Like you knew Iwa’s been seeing someone behind your back since you were pregnant and you knew you hadn’t loved Iwa past the second year of your two’s marriage. But you were afraid of the loneliness for the past 11 years.

On December 28, you filed for divorce. You’ll always remember walking out of the courthouse a free woman that day with the news of the worst winter storm in past decade coming to town. With a 9-year-old Hiroyuki’s hand in yours the two of you head to the little deserted house. The vacation that turned to hell was finally over and you were going home. Iwa walked out of the court house relieved. You both understood how dedicated of parents you were and he knew your marriage wasn’t going to last. He walked back to his car. Mourning the marriage that couldn’t be but giddy with delight that he had split custody of his pride and joy, Hiroyuki.

__________________________

**_Taxi_ **

Tears welled in my eyes as you told the mournful story. “How old is Hiroyuki now, Y/n?” I barely choked out.

“He’s 28 and soon be married,” you smiled as you pulled a picture out from the sun visor of the car. The picture had a handsome man with what I imagined to be his dad’s olive eyes but he had your hair color and texture. Next to him was a blonde woman, who I assumed was his fiancée.

“Wow he’s a handsome man,” I said. He didn’t look like he took too much after you, his mother, since most of his features were foreign to me after studying the picture. You smiled a gleeful smile and your eyes spoke of how proud you were of your son.

“Yes, he truly is! I’d always thought I should’ve tried to give him a sibling,” you spoke going through the what-ifs of your life. You were late for everything. Too late to give Hiroyuki the sibling he so desired. Too late to fix your marriage with Iwaizumi. Too late to chase the love of your life to convince him to stay. “You know I often think about the what-ifs of life. But you are so free. You wanted to leave so you’re leaving. I wish I’d been like you, because I’ll die alone.” For the first time in this car ride it’d been you who’s tears welled and fell down your wrinkled cheeks.

“The only gifts from my lord, were birth and a divorce. My boy has brought so much happiness in my life, so life’s been full of missed opportunities but I got the best outcome. Even though he was a shit husband I must say Iwaizumi was the best father I could’ve asked for, for Hiroyuki. So, I know when my time comes, when I die alone, I’ll finally be on time.” The beautiful 64-year-old woman with wise eyes had tear marks down her face.

“I wish I were born as your son also; Hiroyuki is such a lucky son.” I spoke the thought out loud. You looked puzzled as though you didn’t deserve this praise. The silence consumed me.

“Did you ever find him?” I asked in a soft whisper just barely lead enough for you to hear. You had looked in the rear-view mirror once more. Those eyes burned into mine. I began to regret my question. “How rude of me. Neve- “

“No. But he sent me an invitation to his wedding. I was already married though and I didn’t want my husband to get angry by going to my only ex-boyfriend’s wedding. Even if I wasn’t married, I couldn’t go, one because I knew I still had feeling for him and I’d only be punishing myself to go. Two, because I’d open the envelope 2 months too late.” You chucked at the last reason.

We entered the airport parking lot. You got out of the car and helped with my luggage. I looked at the meteor, $83.67. I started to dig out my wallet.

“Honey, it’s on me. Consider me your mother. If you are to ever return here please don’t forget about me and visit an old lady. I get bored easily you know,” you handed me a little slip of paper with a 10-digit phone number. Stunned I looked at you. A smile crept onto my face and that blinding smile struck again, radiating on your face. We embraced in a tight hug and after a couple seconds, I pulled away and nodded at her remark.

As I walked in front of the door I looked back and saw you in the yellow taxi I’d taken to this airport. It was funny how if I hadn’t decided to leave today at that exact time, I could’ve missed meeting you. A woman whose encounter was small but held a great weight in my heart. I went inside the entry and bought my ticket.

Hours later when I stepped out of JFK airport. The past behind me, focusing on the present and future. The first thing I did was pull out my phone and the little slip of paper. I dialed in the number and pressed call.

 _Ring… ring…. ring…._ Then it stopped and I heard static on the end waiting for me to say something.

“Hey it’s me. I landed in New York….”

_______________________

**_Epilogue_ **

It’d been almost 8 years since I stepped into that town. The occasion was not what I wanted it be either. Y/n L/n, died at the age of 72, cause of death Alzheimer’s Disease. Last time we’d talk you’d started your medication. It all happened so fast. The medication did little to stop because you were too late.

The funeral took place the day after I landed. It was a beautiful service with gospel music and bouquets of flowers littered the room. There were so many people in the room. I went through and offered my condolences, Hiroyuki and his wife share a few of our best moments with y/n.

As I made my way to the exit someone in the back of the room caught my eye. Black hair with gray strands slicked back. Their face covered by their wrinkled hands and their body quivered. Before I could stop myself, I walk up to them.

“Hello,” I dryly say. He looked up a clash of my eyes struck their gunmetal blues. Tears spilled out those hypnotizing blue eyes. “I’m Wesley Schultz.” I stick out my hand.

The man wiping his tears, his face went into a hard stoic expression. “I am Keiji Akaashi,” he reciprocated the hand gesture. So, this tall lean man was the one who left and threw you face first into mayhem. Who would've thought he'd come back, back too late.


End file.
